The effect of public pre-kindergarten (pre-K) on the short-term outcomes of children from disadvantaged backgrounds is well established; however, the mechanisms for this effect are not well understood. Of the many factors that influence how pre-K participants progress during and after kindergarten, one understudied factor is the effect of pre-K participation on kindergarten attendance. The effects of absenteeism are cumulative, and habits established early in the school years are likely to affect later school outcomes. Thus, if pre-K improves kindergarten attendance, participants may be poised for later school success. To begin to test this hypothesis, we conducted a quasi-experimental study to examine the kindergarten readiness of 19,490 children and attendance records of 39,113 children who either were enrolled in Michigan’s Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) or were placed on waitlists because their GSRP sites were full. Using variants of multilevel modeling, we found, as expected, that GSRP children performed better than waitlisted children on the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment. Examination of kindergarten attendance records found that waitlisted children were more likely to be absent than their counterparts who participated in GSRP, with particularly strong effects for children who were Black, economically disadvantaged, or English Language Learners.

公立学前班 (pre-K) 对来自弱势背景的儿童的短期结果的影响是众所周知的；然而，这种效应的机制尚不清楚。在影响学前班参与者在幼儿园期间和幼儿园后进步的众多因素中，其中一个尚未得到研究的因素是学前班参与对幼儿园出勤率的影响。缺勤的影响是累积性的，学年早期养成的习惯可能会影响以后的学业成绩。因此，如果学前班提高了幼儿园的出勤率，参与者可能会为以后的学业成功做好准备。为了开始检验这一假设，我们进行了一项准实验研究，以检查 19,490 名儿童的幼儿园准备情况和 39,113 名儿童的出勤记录，这些儿童要么参加了密歇根州的 Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP)，要么因 GSRP 站点而被列入候补名单已经满了。使用多级建模的变体，我们发现，正如预期的那样，GSRP 儿童在幼儿园准备评估中的表现优于候补儿童。对幼儿园出勤记录的检查发现，与参加 GSRP 的孩子相比，列入候补名单的孩子更有可能缺席，这对黑人、经济弱势群体或英语学习者的影响尤其严重。